Lies are Beautiful, and The Truth Hurts
by Lady Merlin
Summary: sequel to Sentiment: Something is wrong and John is withdrawing from Sherlock. Sherlock hates it but he doesn't know how to fix it, and he doesn't even know what's wrong. Crossposted to LJ/AO3


The Adler thing had been a bust. John knew she was alive. Sherlock knew she was alive. Sherlock knew John knew, and John knew Sherlock knew. But there was still something off about it. Something not quite right. An unspoken tension. And after a silent afternoon car trip to Dartmoor and pulling rank and teasing with undertones of something and the shit-storm in the facility culminating in two inches between them on the bed that felt like a freezing mile, Sherlock has had just about enough of it.

He wants to be close to John again. He wants to feel him, and taste him, and be possessed by him, and the empty distance pushing them apart is ridiculous and Sherlock _hates_ it.

John is quiet on his side of the bed, turned on his side like a little boy, fingers clenched around the edge of the coverlet, and knees bent at 90 degree angles. So small. So far away. He wants to reach over and pull closer, and wrap himself around John like a coat, because he looks so very cold, and cradle him, and kiss him but he's not sure of his welcome.

"What?" John asks, and Sherlock is momentarily confused because John's not even looking at him, how does he… He shakes his head. John pretends to be stupid but he's so clever that he has secret tricks even Sherlock can't understand. His tone is gentle. Friendly, even. Like there's nothing wrong. Like they're fine. Everything's fine. But while six months ago, this would have been perfectly acceptable to Sherlock, now it's not, because he knows the difference between 'fine' and 'good', and he likes good better.

"John…" Sherlock starts, and doesn't know where to go from there. He doesn't want to lie, but he doesn't know what the problem is either, so he can't fix it. There is definitely a problem. "I'm sorry." He'll start with the basics, then.

John, thankfully, doesn't react badly. He doesn't snort, or rub it in any more than he has to, that Sherlock has messed up this time, somewhere, somehow. He doesn't _hum_ condescendingly, and ask whether Sherlock knows what he's apologizing for, like all those women on the shows John sometimes watches.

He turns around under the blanket, so that it's still pulled all the way up to his nose, with his dark, quiet eyes peering out from the coverlet, under his tousled grey-gold-brown hair, and he looks like he's trying to sink into the bed, and hide from the World. Like he's trying to hide from Sherlock. He's studying Sherlock and he looks so utterly _weary_ that Sherlock's got a lump in his throat, just thinking about it, because John is weary _of_ him. Weary _because_ of him.

The thought that Sherlock is somehow bad for John is painful. Especially when John is the only one Sherlock ever feels safe with. The moment anyone else steps into the room, Sherlock automatically catalogues how they could possibly be dangerous to him. Even Lestrade. Even Mycroft. Even Mrs. Hudson. But not John. He catalogued John once, in Barts, when they first met, and he classified him as very dangerous, possibly deadly, and then invited him to look at a flat. Even then, he hadn't felt threatened. And after that he hadn't catalogued his threat level a single time. Not a single time. Not even at that poolside. Not even when, for a split second, Sherlock had thought John was… No. It isn't something he could think of, and retain his remaining sanity.

John is watching him and his eye bags are dark and he looks almost grey. He reaches out a hand and cards his fingers gently through Sherlock's hair, taking care to not snag in any tangles. Sherlock closes his eyes and enjoys the sensation and the closeness and memorizes the feeling. Because if John is going to leave, he needs to remember these things.

He tilts his head into John's hand, and thinks like a cat. He wants to be petted, and touched, and loved gently. He wants so much from John and he doesn't give much back. It's a selfish existence. Selfish and petty, and everything he does means slightly less because of how much he doesn't give John.

And he still doesn't know why there is a distance that John's arm has to cross, two inches of icy cold, untouched sheets. He opens his eyes. John's are closed, so he can't gauge how he's feeling. His fingers are still carding through Sherlock's hair, and still gentle, and then he shuffles closer without over-thinking it, because he can't help it and he needs John in his arms.

John is stiff, and then he relaxes, but not completely. Normally, he melts into Sherlock's arms until there's nothing between the two of them, but the effort John is making to keep his spine still is obvious. It is obvious, and it makes Sherlock clench his teeth and his entire face hurts, and his jaw, and he's swallowing past that damn lump in his throat and his eyes are stinging because John doesn't feel safe enough to relax in his arms. It's one of the most painful things he's ever felt.

He doesn't seem to be up to completely controlling his body functions, because tears are rolling past his tightly squeezed-shut eyelids and he hopes John doesn't notice, oh he _hopes_ and it's for nothing, because the next thing he knows John is pulling out of his arms (and he can't suppress a miniature exhalation of agony, like he's dying, because this is the metaphor for his whole life, people pulling away) and then coming back closer to him, pushing him flat on his back and rearranging them so that John is lying half on top of Sherlock, face tucked into his neck with just enough leverage that he can prop himself up on his elbows and meet Sherlock's eyes.

Sherlock still has his eyes squeezed shut because they need to stop producing tears, right now, and they're refusing to obey, and he's swearing at his rubbish body functions, doing things he doesn't want, involuntarily.

John's calloused fingers brush away his tears, and he's asking, "Hey, hey, what's wrong Sherlock?" and Sherlock has to resist the urge to shake his head and not say anything, like the petulant five year old Mycroft accuses him of being.

"I've done something bad," he starts and his voice is rubbish, shaky and unsure, "and you're pulling away from me." He thinks if his jaws ache anymore, he's going to rip them out and throw them to the Hounds, because this is unbearable.

John is sliding one hand into the hollow between the small of his back and the bed, where there is a tiny space because of the natural arc of his back, and the other hand on Sherlock's cheek, his thumb rubbing small tender circles over his cheekbones and everything spills out, tears, and words, and it's horrific because Sherlock has _never_ lost control of his emotions like this, _ever_, in his entire life, not _once_.

"And I'm sorry but it's not been right since I saved Irene and you're quiet and your spine is stiff and you don't trust me and I never meant you harm I was there the whole time in Baskerville and I would never let you have been hurt by anything and my chest hurts and I never want you to be upset with me ever again, but I'm too much and I'm making you tired so maybe I'm not good for you and I should go away because I hurt you by being me and you're right to not trust me because I'm a sociopath and I don't know how to give you what you deserve—"

John silenced him with a hand over his mouth, and weeks ago he'd have done it with a kiss and it feels like the sun's gone down and the world is never going to be light again and he's sobbing so hard because the thought hurts. He shouldn't have had that whiskey because his filter has melted and it's embarrassing and _shameful_.

"You're not making sense, Sherlock." It's obvious that some of it's gotten through to John, but not all of it. For John, anything less than perfect clarity was insufficient, and Sherlock loved him for that most of the time. He didn't want to open his mouth to explain it, now. But he had to. John had asked. He couldn't ignore it.

He's tamping down _ruthlessly_ on the shaking of his voice when he starts speaking, when John lifts his hand.

"I've done something bad, and I don't know what it is. It was wrong to try to drug you in the coffee shop, I know. I'm sorry. I was there the whole time. I couldn't trust anyone else's reactions. It had to be you. I didn't want it to be. Because you know you're the most important person to me in the world, no matter what I say. But something's been wrong since you told me Irene was alive. Like you don't trust me. You would have kissed me. To keep me quiet when I was babbling. You would have kissed me. And now you covered my mouth. And you don't trust me when I'm hugging you because I feel the tension in your spine. You're tensed to run. And I don't want you to leave! I've never wanted to not be me more than I do now. I'd give anything to not be me, so that I'd be normal and I'd be able to understand what I've done wrong and _fix_ it!"

He'd started off relatively calm, pacing his words, watching his speech. He'd lost his grip towards the end. He wanted to blame it on the alcohol, but it wasn't the only thing to blame. Intense emotions made people lose control over their brain-to-mouth filter, the same way alcohol did. He was a slave to neurochemistry, just like everyone else. The closest he normally got to emotional states was anger. He knew how to deal with it. Guilt, regret, remorse, hopelessness. He didn't know what to do with these things. Not at all.

John was watching him with wide eyes, clear of any emotion. He was glad he couldn't see any pity there. He didn't want pity. Not now. Not ever. His hand was on the nape of Sherlock's neck, rubbing small circles around his pulse point with his thumb. It had to have been an awkward position for his wrist, but he didn't seem to have noticed it.

Sherlock's hitching breath had slowed down, and John had interrupted his furious scrubbing at his eyes and wiped away tears with gentle, worn, calloused hands.

"I thought you fell in love with her."

The sentence is simple. Composition is clear. The words aren't complicated. John's voice is just on this side of steady. Audible but not deafening. Soft, but in terms of sharpness and not volume. It takes Sherlock an embarrassingly long time to understand it all the same, despite the fact that there is only one "Her".

"What?" He can hear his own voice, as if he is a spectator to this scene, standing somewhere in a corner with his hands over his ears. Muffled. Shocked. He can see the look on his own face, in his minds eye. Horrified. This level of shock deserves a repetition. "What?"

John has closed his eyes and he is retreating pulling back pulling away from Sherlock both in body and in mind and his thumb has stopped circling his pulse and it's all unacceptable. He will not let John retreat. Not like this. His arms fly out with surprising inaccuracy and fumble around John's soft t-shirt, trying to tug him closer before he realizes that despite the mental distance John hasn't actually gone anywhere. Despite being half-pressed under John, he feels like gravity's been reversed and he's falling but the wrong way around. He doesn't understand any of this. "How could you think I'd love her when I'm with you?"

John's bark of laughter is short, and ugly. "Physical fidelity is not the same as mental fidelity. Especially not for you. I'm not saying you can't fantasize about her. I'd understand, I'm hardly anything to look at." Sherlock wants to stop him, wants to say something to make him see that John's the only thing he can see when he's in the same room as Sherlock, and it's an effort to peel his gaze away from the short ex-army doctor with the warmest eyes in the world, and his history written onto his skin who still manages to surprise him at every turn, but John's still talking.

"But you thought she was clever. You were attracted to her mind. One day she'll grow old and she might not be as beautiful as she is now, but she'll still have that razor sharpness that you have. I'm old now. I've never had that. I never will. I understood that you could love her, even if you're having sex with me. I'm not going to hold it against you."

Sherlock is crying again, silent tears running from his cheeks. Because how can this man even exist? His entire being goes against the laws of the universe, and here he is anyway, existing as if none of that mattered. As if it was irrelevant that Sherlock had resigned himself to spending his life alone because there was no one he'd want with him who'd want him back. And John is _still_ speaking and Sherlock wants to interrupt so badly but he has to let him finish this.

"And I love you, Sherlock. Nothing you say or do can change that. I'll love you till the day I die, whenever that may be." There is something dark and resigned there. Another hole he will have to dig up, to understand. "But I will not force myself on you. I will stay with you without you having to give me anything. I don't want sex and cuddling and kisses if you think it's what keeps me here. I'm not." He takes a deep breath and Sherlock can feel John's chest expand in counterpoint to his own. "You can't buy me like that. I won't take advantage of you, like that. You want a companion. I'll be your companion. That's all it needs to be. I don't need anymore."

This, Sherlock knows, is a white lie. Stupid things he has found himself lying about, to make someone else feel better. John doesn't need anymore, he knows. John can exist independent of Sherlock. But he wants more. Sherlock hopes he wants more. He has to. He said he loved Sherlock. He can't be—No. John wasn't pushing Sherlock away because of he didn't want him. John wasn't pushing him away at all. He was retreating to give Sherlock space. Space that Sherlock neither wanted nor needed. Space that belong to John, and John alone.

He's crying again and he's given up trying to control it. This cannot be a pretty sight but clenching his teeth made his jaws hurt. He hates crying. He _hates_ it. He doesn't understand how people can do this regularly and not _die_ from how horrible it feels.

John was half on-top of him and sidling away slowly and Sherlock uses every ounce of his body strength to pull John back, arms wrapped around his waist, one palm resting flat on the small of John's back and the other cradling the junction between his neck and his head, tucking it into the curve of Sherlock's own neck, so that his lips came to rest on the soft, fine hair behind John's ear.

It's not strategic to start with the most important point in a conversation. People lose interest in the less important points. But if John has to go one more second without knowing this, Sherlock thinks he might have to kill someone. And if he's the only one to blame for causing this…

"I love you, John." John hadn't been entirely comfortable on top of Sherlock. Still shifting around and gingerly letting his thigh fall between Sherlock's, where he'd made space just for that purpose, as if he was testing the waters and tentative. He went rigid when Sherlock said it.

"Sherlock," he chokes out, and a more pained four syllable word had never existed. "Don't."

Sherlock ignores him. John often doesn't understand that there are things he needs to be told. John often doesn't understand how easy it is to love him. "I _love_ you. And only you." His fingers are pushing through the hair at the base of John's neck, a prelude to carding his hair, which made John whimper in pleasure. His own voice is still rough from tears but he continues anyway.

"I have never loved Irene. Never considered it. I've not even fantasized about her. I'm not lying. Her body holds no attraction to me. Only you do. _Everything_ about you, John. Her mind is sharp, but sharpness cuts, and cuts hurt and bleed. I saved her so she owes me a debt. Not because of anything else. She betrayed me. I wouldn't trust her further than I could throw her. I trust you with my entire existence, even though you're my one greatest weakness. When I thought she died, I smoked a cigarette. A game was left unfinished. If I thought you had died, John." His breath snags on the words, and tears. "I'd have set the world on fire. I'd have razed London to the ground, John, if someone had so much as touched a hair on your head."

There is a warm, answering dampness on his shoulder, and irregular puffs of warm breath. John is shaking. Sherlock wants to gather him up into a bundle and wrap them together in his coat, forever and ever, even if it means they have to do a crabwalk shuffle to their crime scenes. Sherlock wants to shrink John and keep him inside his ribcage, safe, near his malfunctioning heart, so he can act as Sherlock's conscience and soul. Because having a soul inside is much safer than having a soul outside, surely.

Possibly he would like it even better, the other way around. Sherlock doesn't think a warmer place exists, than John's chest cavity. If he could, he would. Without hurting John. He'd shrink himself and spend the rest of his days in a cavity in John's chest, under impossibly strong muscle and impossibly warm wool. He would like it much better there, than out here. He would never get bored if he could study how John's heart works. If he could reassure himself that John really does exist, and that he hasn't gone 'round the bend and invented an imaginary soul for himself. But no. Mycroft's seen him too. It should be proof enough. And the craving to be ensconced inside John is still impossibly strong. The desire to be as safe as all the things John kept close to his heart.

When John whimpers and kisses his neck soft, sweet, chaste and terrified, Sherlock realizes he's been babbling out loud. John's terrified because he thinks Sherlock will push him away. There is nothing Sherlock wants to do more than hold John still and kiss him, hard, remind him that he's there and he's not going anywhere if he can help it. But John has to be the one to take this. Because he has to know it's his for the taking. There is nothing of Sherlock that is not John's. John needs to know that.

Sherlock had been so absorbed in his own potential loss, in what he'd done wrong and what he was suffering, that he'd neglected John's suffering, because John hid it so well. John, who turned and held him when he thought Sherlock loved someone else. John, who comforted him, even when his own heart was breaking. John who was a better man than anyone else Sherlock knew. Better than anyone else he'd ever know. John, who didn't see his own value.

John, whom Sherlock had failed, by treating like a pet to experiment on, instead of an equal partner, and re-affirming his own concept of his usefulness.

Sherlock lies perfectly still and tightens his fingers in John's hair, running his lips along John's ear lobe, not kissing, just… touching. John kisses his neck again, and again, and after the third time Sherlock doesn't protest, he surges upwards and kiss his mouth, and sucks on Sherlock's lower lip and kisses again and again, and he's still crying, but so is Sherlock, and their kisses are wet and salty but that's okay. Sherlock's missed John's kisses too much to care. And John's tears are a part of him, so ingesting them is a perfection Sherlock can't even describe.

And Sherlock wants this to be over, wants to be done with this time of their lives, and to never revisit it, ever again. But they're not done. There are things that need to be said. And it's less urgent now, and the need to say everything right this very instant feels less desperate. But it cannot be put off. Sherlock put it off the last time, and this was where they had ended up, and in complying with the never revisiting this misunderstanding condition, he will go through with this, no matter how painful it is.

He lets John finish, though. He now knows, first hand, how impossible it is to focus and be coherent while one is crying. John's breathing is irregular, but Sherlock's hand is still stroking his head, and their bodies are still pressed together under the thin duvet, warm, and comfortable.

And now that he has the opportunity to speak, he finds that he doesn't have the words, or that they are not lining up properly in his head. This will be a little bit hit and miss but he had to try.

"I need you to listen," he starts, which is possibly slightly insulting, but John will understand, "because I need you to understand what I mean when I'm not capable of expressing it." John nods slightly, into Sherlock's shoulder. It will be a miniature trial, as he cannot see John's eyes, or face, and he will have no idea how his lover is responding.

"I never believed myself capable of love, before you, John. Never." He waits for the protest, and possibly steals a few seconds to gather courage. Make no mistake. Sherlock was a very brave man. But this was more important than anything he had ever done. And more dangerous. And only a fool is immune to fear. Sherlock is many things, but he is not a fool.

"I believed myself defective," he continues, quoting things people had told him his entire life. "I didn't even hope for it, or want to hope for it." It's true. It's horrible, and it's true. Giving up hope was sad. Not wanting to have hope, and believing that his deficient body and mind were perfectly functioning without relationships; it was horrible.

"And then I met you, John. And you were supposed to be boring and normal but you weren't, and I couldn't place it. Everything about you was normal, but then when it all came together, it was like the whole was greater than the sum of the parts, and it was mathematically impossible, and I didn't understand you, and I wanted to. I wanted to _very _much. And you didn't run, even when I dissected your head. John."

He strokes John's hair, trying to properly just say what he needs to say. "You didn't run from me. And you knew. You weren't an unwitting victim. You knew exactly what I was doing. You knew I could read you like an open book. And you didn't run from me. You didn't run from who I was."

This actually deserves a moment of respect, because there is literally no one in Sherlock's past who has not flinched from his personality, at the very least, or taken a flight to the other side of the world to avoid him. His own mother hadn't been able stand his personality.

"And you didn't want anything from me." That's equally unprecedented, because everyone Sherlock has ever known has approached him for something in return. As if bearing his mere presence deserves some sort of reward, in the form of help from him. As if he was supposed to be grateful that people asked for his help when they couldn't even dare to meet his gaze. "And John, I'm doing a very bad job of this, but you're incre—you changed my life. I cannot believe you are real, sometimes. I'm scared I invented you, for me, sometimes. You fit me like my other half."

It's a poetic, nonsensical, romantic notion, that is none-the-less true in his case. John is his anti-thesis, and his opposite and he balances Sherlock and makes him want to be better. Makes him want to be normal, and good, and easier. For John.

"I need you to know that I love you, and that you make my life worth living. I don't say it often. I don't say it at all. But that's because I thought—" Sherlock doesn't want it to sound like an accusation, but he doesn't understand how John could have thought Sherlock didn't love him; how John could not have known. Apparently Sherlock hadn't understood as much as he'd thought he had.

"I thought you knew, John. How much you meant to me. How vital you are to my life." His fingers haven't stopped stroking the back of John's head, and neck, since he started speaking. "You don't know how much it meant to me that you trusted me. It made me believe I was human even when I didn't feel like a human. Because I trust your judgment. If you think I'm good, surely there is something inside me worth saving."

He's rambling now, because he's a little confused, and there's so many things that need to be said; he's trying to lead to the point in a logical manner but it's defying him, and so he gives up.

"I love you." John doesn't stiffen, this time, and Sherlock counts it as one of his greatest victories, ever. "I love you more than I can describe with words, or actions, or even both. I love you so much that I can't breathe for it, sometimes. You are _necessary_, John Watson, to my continued existence, because when you're not there it's like I'm a mute quadriplegic person having a heart-attack; unable to move, or speak, or call for help, and dying."

"Not once in the time I've known you, have I wanted you gone. I have never ever wished for you to leave me. I have never wished for anything more than what you give me. You are beautiful, and your mind is worth ten times anyone else's, regardless of how intelligent they are, because of how perfectly compatible it is with mine." John was melting, a little, somehow folding into the corners of Sherlock's body like he was a fluid, and he would take the shape of his surroundings. It was such an impossible relief that Sherlock couldn't breathe for it.

It was time to hit the nail on the head. "I only want you to leave me under one circumstance, John." John froze. "I only want you to leave me, when _you_ want to. Not otherwise. I don't know if you've noticed, but I always want you there."

Sherlock's voice had started out hoarse and shivering, but with John's body so close to his, and his words clearly having the intended effect on John, it had strengthened as his monologue progressed. Good. John had needed to listen. John had needed to hear a great many things. And no doubt Sherlock would have to continue repeating them at regular intervals, but if it meant that much to John, he would gladly repeat himself every single day.

He might even record it and put it on repeat as John slept, so he would know for sure that there wasn't a single living, breathing moment in which Sherlock wasn't thinking about him.

He could ramble on forever about it, just describing, or attempting to describe how important John was, but he wasn't sure how he could express something he hadn't even thought about in spoken terms. He would have to summarize.

"No one compares to you and no one ever will. I love you because you're the love of my life. There will never be anyone who will compare, ever. I will never _not_ want you by my side."

It was a good summary. Possibly trite, but completely honest, and suddenly John was laughing into Sherlock's shoulder, his own shoulders shaking weakly and his fingers clutching weakly into Sherlock's clothes, pressing his lips into the back of Sherlock's ear, tender and affectionate and not guarded at all.

"Thank you," John whispered, and Sherlock wanted to protest but he had an idea that that wouldn't be taken too well. So he nodded and smiled even though John couldn't see him, and very pointedly did not think about how close he had come to losing his lover over a misunderstanding he could easily have prevented. "I love you too."

"Are we," Sherlock hesitated, "okay?"

John propped himself up and kissed him again. "We're better than okay. We're good, love."

And John will not lie to him about this, so that is the truth, and it is perfect.


End file.
